It is well known that fecal material is often difficult to remove from the skin of the user, in particular from sensitive skin such as by young babies and such as the skin around the genitals. Moreover, it is well known that fecal material on the skin can cause irritation and redness of the skin and sometimes even dermatitis of the skin.
One of the solutions to reduce the fecal material on the skin is to provide a means to isolate the fecal material immediately after discharge, away from the skin. For example, diapers with an elasticized topsheet with an opening also referred to as anal and/or genital cuff, through which the feces can pass to a void space between the topsheet and the absorbent core, have been developed. The fecal material is then stored underneath this topsheet, away from the skin. It may be particularly beneficial that such a topsheet is made of a material having barrier properties
The inventors have found that often materials that provide a good barrier are not very comfortable in use. The inventors furthermore found that these barrier materials are sometimes difficult to elasticize, or that it is difficult to provide comfortable elastic regions in such materials. The inventors found that it may be desirable that the topsheet or other elasticized components (e.g., waistband, barrier cuffs, and leg cuffs) have softer elastic regions for the sensitive (baby) skin. It has been found that it is important that the wrinkles, caused by the elastic regions, leave less pressure marks. It has been found that the wrinkles should therefore be uniform. However, in some instances it may be difficult to produce elasticized articles with uniform elastics at high speed, especially when the elastics are applied in a curvilinear pattern and/or when the elastics are applied under high strain, and/or when the elasticized material is thick or stiff, such as may be the case with high barrier materials.
The inventors found that with prior art processes, the elastic material is merely attached in stretch state to a nonwoven with adhesives, which is applied in, for example, a spiral or omega pattern. Thus, the attachment of the elastic material in a stretched state may result in irregular attachment areas and irregular wrinkles.
The inventors have now found an improved process to provide comfortable elasticized regions in topsheet with one or more openings, and they have found an improved elasticized composite sheet material useful in or as such topsheets and useful in absorbent articles. In the improved process, a first sheet is submitted to a patterning step to form troughs, which are then simultaneously attached by application of gentle pressure to a stretched elastic material, i.e., before the elasticized region is allowed to relax and form wrinkles. The resulting patterned, wrinkled composite sheet material has an improved wrinkle pattern that is softer and/or more comfortable for the user. By patterning the first sheet with troughs and attaching these, or part thereof, to an elastic material prior to relaxation of the elastics, the subsequently wrinkle formation and wrinkle pattern can be controlled to have the desired uniformity.